Here's a shortish blog video for Chapters 5-7 of Graziosi's Homer: A Very Short Introduction. We'll talk more about these chapters in class, but the video below highlights one or two very important points I don't want you to miss. And of course, don't forget to leave a COMMENT below!
A book that made me really made me face death from a different perspective was, of course, Bridge to Terabithia. A lot of people have seen the movie version, but I read it whenever I was a kid because it was one of my mom's favorites. If you aren't familiar with the book or the movie than this story is about two 5th graders, Jess and Leslie. Jess is kind of an outsider to the town and he loves to race. One day, the new girl, Leslie, starts to race him and beats him and from then on the two become friends. However, after meeting Leslie, Jess's life is completely transformed. The two kids create a kingdom for themselves called Terabithia. the two kids go out into the forest and have to cross a river to access Terabithia. One day, Leslie falls into the river and dies.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably the first time I had ever cried in a book and when I really had to realize that kids die too. The movie came out whenever I was 7 years old and although I knew about death, I had really only had older people in my life die. This was a whole new experience for me because, as kids, we tend to look at ourselves as invincible or god-like. I'm not at all saying that kids aren't fearful, because they are. When your a kid you're well aware that you can hurt yourself and that there are "bad guys" and "monsters" but most don't think about dying, or that they can die because they're a kid. I wont lie, I know that whenever I was a kid I thought that my parents would be able to save me from any trouble I was in or that my fairy godmother would finally show up and come to my rescue. However, this book really showed me that we aren't invincible and that kids can also die. We don't have super powers, the little things that glow outside at night aren't really fairies, and no matter how much our parents love us, they can't always save us from death.
Great response--books (or maybe films) are the first times that children realize that they're NOT invincible, and that not even their parents can protect them forever (nor can the kids protect their parents!). It's a scary moment when you realize this, but it's an essential one, and literature prepares us for it so that when it happens in real life, we've already lived it, in a sense. You could also say Achilles is like you as a child, thinking himself untouchable and omnipotent. But as the poem goes on, people he loves are taken away from him, and he realizes that Fate/Death is stronger than him, and that no amount of sulking will keep it away. Or worse still, by not acting, other people he loves will die, which is worse than his own death. This is a good lesson for the reader, too!
DeleteWhenever I think of my perceptions of death in the context of literature, one of the first things that comes to mind is the novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It’s been a few years since I’ve read it, and it may be a relatively on the nose example, but it’s definitely one that has stuck with me. The Book Thief is a coming-of-age story about a girl named Liesel living in Nazi Germany during World War II. The narrator of the story is in fact Death (portrayed as a disembodied male voice), and this method of storytelling renders him as tangible a character as Liesel. And while this novel isn’t the first to personify death, it is one that makes him intriguing as it eschews from presenting him as the menacing hooded figure sporting a scythe. The way Death sees himself as an entity is both detached yet intrinsic. He doesn’t collect people’s souls because he takes pleasure in the misery and suffering of humans. It is in fact the mortality of humans that gives him influence in the first place. While he doesn’t claim to be kind, he also doesn’t claim to be unsympathetic to the human condition. We are able to witness Liesel growing up through the years because Death is witnessing it himself as he is going about his work. It alludes to the idea that rather than death only being present at the end, he is in fact a constant companion that we don’t address until we must. Just as life is all around us, so is he. At the end of the novel Liesel has her own conversation with Death. He reveals that humans are something he doesn’t understand due to their capacity for both great good and great evil. This particular sentiment is emphasized given the story’s setting. It makes you realize that death, while an immensely painful aspect of life, is also one of the fairest in that it comes for us all. While Death is often cited as the greatest enemy, this book touches on the fact that it is humans who have both the capability, and perhaps the propensity, to cause undue pain and suffering. By the end of the book Death actually admits to feeling a sense of exhaustion due to all the souls he’s collected during this particular point in history.
ReplyDeleteI love this book (and the movie based on it), and I think it's a great example of how literature can put us in "harm's way" without really harming us. There are some situations we can only understand in the shadow of death, and literature does this by placing us in the eyes and experience of characters who have to face the death sooner than we do. This is certainly the case in The Iliad, when we all know Hector's fate even before he does...and then are with him the moment he realizes that death has come for him. We can never know how we'll act in that situation, but reading about it first can help prepare us, or at least help us reflect on the life we do lead in the meantime.
DeleteFrom grades 5-8, I was obsessed with books about death. The librarian at my school didn’t understand why but when she found a book about death she would put it aside for me to read. I think I was obsessed with death because I had never been to a funeral or had lost someone really close to me until my senior year of high school. So many of my friends lost someone important to them but not me so I would read books to try and understand their pain. There are two books that really made me feel like I understood death and they were Don’t Die My Love by Lurlene McDaniel and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Two very similar books that deal with the death of a boyfriend to cancer. Now that I am thinking about it, my grandma was diagnosed with cancer when I was in 5th grade and that’s where my obsession with death books started. She didn’t pass away thank God, but maybe she’s the reason why I was obsessed with Lurlene McDaniel in the fifth grade! Anyways, both of those books deal with two teenagers falling in love and then one or both of them had cancer. Both books were written so well because it’s been years since I have read them and I still have visual images of scenes from the books. Something I want to point out is that in both books neither boy deserved to have cancer or die. They were good people who still had so much to live for. That taught me that no matter how old you are, you can die and there’s nothing no one can do about that. That’s why it’s so important to live a kind life and always take risks because you truly never know when your last day may be.
ReplyDeleteThat's fascinating--that a childhood brush with death led you to subconsciously understand it better through your reading. I, too, was obsessed with reading about death and dark things at a young age, largely for the same reason; I wanted to get near it without staring it in the face. And I think literature and art is a great way to deal with the unsolvable questions of life, such as why 'good' people die or suffer while 'bad' people prosper and are rewarded--or who even is good or bad in the first place. It's hard to discuss this or even explain it without recourse to a story. A story can help us work through these issues and arrive at some sort of true.
DeleteBrady Pyle
ReplyDeleteOne of my all-time favorite novels is Looking for Alaska by John Green. Inevitable deaths are common throughout Green’s other works, but this novel held the idea in a different perspective. Alaska is seen as a free-spirited character, formed by her unlucky background. She rebelled at the school by doing the things she was not supposed to such as drinking and smoking on campus. She lived by the labyrinth because it stood for an adventurous, purposeful journey or path. After all, life should not be lived in a straight line. The foreshadowing happened when the reader first recognizes a girl, Alaska, “full of life” who ultimately dies in an unexpected car crash. Even though the reader could expect a tragic ending, the shock felt by the characters can be felt by readers, too.
This book is a prime example of an inevitable death through irony. Typically, I steer clear of books with sad endings, but this book was requested multiple times by a close friend. It left a huge impact and will forever hold a spot as one of my favorite novels. I do think authors intentionally place death in stories because it is easy to attach and connect with a character, and when something happens to them, it is not easily forgotten. Life should be cherished because one never knows when it will be their last day, and Green’s novel, Looking for Alaska, shows the inevitable scenarios.
Yes, great response; we can't all live through a near-death experience, nor should we all lose loved ones simply to learn a lesson...but books can make us do both, and live vicariously through the experiences of others. We can only live one or at most two lives (depending on how long we live, and how many experiences/careers we have), but through fiction we can experience thousands--and in different times, too. Without reading, I would argue, it's hard to truly understand the sheer variety and scope of life, and it can be very hard to learn to empathize with others.
DeleteKate Robinson:
ReplyDeleteI think the theme of the inevitability of death has always been prominent. It's one of the few absolutely universal human issues. As a kid, there were several works that made me see death differently. However, recently, I watched the movie, "Into the Wild," and it really made me see death through a new perspective. The main character, the self-named Alex Supertramp, leaves his former life and all comforts behind him in an attempt to experience a more substantial life. This film has omen after omen showing that he is destined for death, but he continues to his 'Great Alaska Trip.' Things eventually take a turn, as he eats a root that is deadly without treatment and he finds himself stuck on the wrong side of an impassible river.
The movie shows him screaming and crying, fighting with every fiber of his weakened body, simply to live. However, in the end, starvation and exhaustion overtake him and he dies. As he drifts away, it shows him staring up into a clear sky, smiling. He didn't want to die. He hoped to survive and travel back to society again. However, he realized that the only way to truly live was to risk dying. It helped me to understand that if you spend your life in fear of death, you'll never truly live.
Oh wow, this is one of my favorite books of all time, and of course I love the movie as well (which is pretty faithful to the spirit of the book). What I love about this scene is that it underlines the biggest thing he seems to have learned in life, which is experiences matter more if they're shared with others, and a solitary life can be exciting, but rarely fulfilling. He spent all his time trying to cut off relationships and avoid people, only to learn when he's most alone that he cherishes the relationships he made. It's also sad to see that according to his diary, he was planning to go back and reconnect with society and friends. And he never got the chance.
DeleteGloria Evans
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite books is The Secret Life of Bees. I read this book for a class while I was anticipating a really difficult anniversary. This book tells the story of a young girl grieving her mother and the relationship page never had with her, while also handling realities of race and spirituality. While it was really hard for me to get through this book, it also helped me relate to a character who was living in spite of her grief. While Lily was driven by a deep guilt and grief for the majority of the novel, she found home in the most unlikely place by opening her heart and becoming transparent in her grieving.
Yes, grief is a journey, and it doesn't end, but it also doesn't end you (unless you let it, I suppose). I like the quote from the recent series, Wandavision, which has gone a bit viral lately. Vision tells Scarlet Witch/Wanda, that "grief is love persevering." And I love that idea--that grief means we haven;t let go of love, we still believe in it, but that it continues to hurt because we won't let it go. And that's the hardest thing to see when you're grieving, that there's any point to it, or that it contains anything related to love. Yet it can also teach us, though sometime, we need a book to see how that's possible.
DeleteTaylor Johnson
ReplyDeleteI feel like I write about the Legend of Zelda series too often, but there is one game in the series, called Majora’s mask, that expresses the idea of death and grieving. In the game, Link spends his days with a falling moon constantly lingering over his head (if you don’t know what it looks like you should look it up, it is creepy). Every day the moon grows larger and larger and falls closer and closer to the land of Termina. If Link does not use his Ocarina to travel back in time, the moon will fall on Termina and destroy his world. Link is restricted to only traveling back to three days prior to the moons falling. He is tasked with saving his world within that three-day period. If he does not succeed, he has to start completely over. Throughout the game, there is the constant feeling of impending doom and death. All you have to do to remind yourself of this inevitable death is to shift the camera up and see the moon looking down at you.
Interestingly the world has five lands. There are many theories that support the idea that the five lands represent the five stages of grief. Link travels to each of these lands until finally, he ends up in Ikana Valley, which is believed to represent the final stage of grief, acceptance. Seeing Link successfully survive the five lands, or five stages of grief, allowed me to see that I could conquer grief from death. It also showed me that I could face death with courage and strength.
That's fascinating, especially since in a game, you are literally living the adventure, so it makes the presence of death all the more realistic. I think games are a great way to live through experiences like this, since they feel so real and lived, though they don't have long-lasting consequences! A thousand years ago, fiction would have felt more like gaming--something that was more interactive (since it was a performance, and not something read silently) and because there was no other experience like it.
DeleteKourtney Fullerton
ReplyDeleteOne of the first books I read in middle school that dealt with death in a very tragic way and has always stood out to me is 'The Man Who Loved Clowns" by June Rae Wood. It is about a girl (about 13?) who's uncle has down syndrome (about 45?)and loves to go see the clowns be carved at Silver Dollar City in Branson. One day the parents are coming to pick up the girl and her uncle but die in a car wreck on the way. This creates health problems for the uncle who at the end of the novel also passes away. This was my first novel that dealt with this much death and although I haven't read it since, I still remember how life changing it was to me that books wasn't all happy stories with good endings. Besides this novel and Harry Potter, I haven't read very many sad or tragic novels unless they are for class. To me reading should make you happy, not cry!
Wow, that is a heavy work, and one that would be pretty tough going for a middle schooler! And yet, all of this could happen to someone who is 13, or even younger. That's the beauty of fiction, it shows us that death happens outside of our bubble, whether or not we see it, and there are so many 'worlds' going on at once. We can't see them all and be one person unless we read and vicariously live through other's experiences. That was the original use of fiction, I feel; to teach empathy and to share the collective knowledge of people who had long since passed from the earth. It was the first hard drive, if you will...a way of plugging into other's experiences and sharing them in turn.
DeleteA book that I have read that talked about death very often was The Boy in The Black Suit by Jason Reynolds. This book was intended for a teenage audience. I read this book as a seventeen year old and it gave me a very unique glimpse into the aspect of death and grieving. The book was very relatable to me because of the main character being a teenager himself. In this book Jason has to deal with the loss of his mother as a teenager> We go on a journey of Jason attempting to grieve and cope with this death all throughout the book. He never really has closure from it until he gets a job at a funeral home where he finds himself present at several funerals a week. Throughout the book he feels more and more comfortable at these funerals because he feels that he can relate to the families and friends in attendance. It was very interesting to me that he found comfort in other peoples grief.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's a fascinating example, and a way to show young readers that death isn't something that happens just "over there," or to "some people." It's all around us, and some people even learn to become comfortable (relatively) with it, or the idea of it. We get so comfortable with our lived experience and call that experience 'normal.' But it's not. Nothing is normal to everyone. Fiction can help us see and experience that in a way that no amount of living and traveling can.
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